Wednesday, January 23, 2013

2013 All-Armchair Linebacker Team (numbers 2 through 22)

In case you missed yesterday’s first part to this 2013
All-Armchair Linebacker team, well then you’re fucked. You’ll never catch up at
this point. Anyways, today we go through numbers 12 to 22. These are the
higher-profile QBs where one number was not enough, or misfit kickers or
punters, or WRs who at first barely make a football team as a special teams guy
with a second-hand number in training camp, but then it sticks. These are also
the early 20s numbers, star numbers for players better than an under-20 number
would warrant, but need to be first in line on the regular, non-pussy
specialist dude roster. So let’s get to it…

#12: Tom Brady (QB, New England Patriots) – You know what? A
really strange thing happened to me after that Patriots/Ravens game the other
day, as I had been rooting against Belichick/Brady like anybody else with any
human decency. But then there was Ray Lewis trying to take off his shoulder
pads with 2 minutes left in the game so he could show off his stupid fucking
Jesus shirt, and somebody is like, “No no no no” to him because you know, the
game’s not over. So he lurks around, then gets himself unstrapped really
quickly after the game so he can very melodramatically crouch down in the
center of the field and gibber-pray some bullshit, with no teammates around at
all, surrounded by media cameras, with his stupid tank top message on. And I
realized, here I was rooting against Tom Brady this whole time, thinking he was
a total douchebag, when in actuality the real total douche of the NFL was on
the other side, in the form of Ray Lewis. All too often the Ray Lewis opinion
is either, “He’s great” or “He stabbed people so I am uncomfortable with him.”
Neither of these really address the issue of what a melodramatic queen type he
truly is, and how he’s easily – EASILY – the biggest douchebag in the NFL. Why
do I say all this as I talk about Tom Brady on the All-ACLB team? Because it’s
my way of explaining that yes Tom Brady is handsome by magazine advertisement
standards, and yes he is rich, and yes he has won three Super Bowls already.
And yes, he was George Bush’s guest a bunch of times. But how is he really that
bad? Like what are the genuine displays of outright douchery he has committed
lately. Now I understand this might just mean he has excellent handlers and PR
people, but still, being handled properly and relating to the public well is
not necessarily a horrible thing, now is it?

#13: T.Y. Hilton (WR, Indianapolis Colts) – Mostly I like
him because his name sounds like an actor on one of those WB network urban
sitcoms. Sometimes I can’t sleep and I am sitting around late doing nothing
naked on the couch high on hydrocodone, and I end up watching those shows –
like Sisters or Meet the Pains (or whatever) where that one dude wears the most
garish clothes possible. I’m not even sure most white people know these things
exist. But also, racial composition is not scientific at all, and actually a
political tool, so ultimately it doesn’t matter if white people know it exists,
because “white people” themselves don’t truly exist, at least not
scientifically.

#14: Zoltan Mesko (P, New England Patriots) – If you are
named Zoltan, you will be on the All ACLB team. That’s been the new rule ever
since Mack Strong retired.

#15: Tim Tebow (QB, New York Jets) – The whole Sanchez/Rex
Ryan thing I wrote about yesterday is even more bizarre when you add in Tim
Tebow to the whole thing. I know locker room codes are not broken, and the NFL
is very strict in enforcing its kayfabe policies of not revealing bullshit to
the rubes/marks at large (meaning you and me), but man, I bet the story beneath
the underbelly of the 2012 New York Jets
is quite an amazing story.

#16: Josh Cribbs (WR, Cleveland Browns) – Gangsta Cribbs,
who did not have the same explosion as return specialist this year, nor was he
utilized as much in the wildcat formation being the Browns have Brandon Weeden
now. But Gangsta Cribbs is Gangsta Cribbs, and he always came with the fury.
For me, Cribbs is the perfect example of how the NFL exploits people, as he was
the only thing worth seeing in a Browns uniform for a number of years, and they
never gave him the money he wanted, even when he held out, and now his value
has gone down so he couldn’t get it if they wanted to give it to him, and he’ll
be out of the league in a couple of years, having generated millions, and made
thousands. I know you heartless fuckers raised on the machine emotions of the
Lords of Capital always go, “Whoa man, these guys get paid a lot of money to
play this game… If they are broken, crippled, and impoverished in five years, it’s not my problem.” One should not
revel in the ignorance of others, and one should definitely not pretend to
themselves that by continuously supporting an exploitative business that preys
on the environmentally conditioned ignorance of others, that they are not part
of the problem.

#17: Austin Collie (WR, Indianapolis Colts) – I like to call
him Mr. Concussion. This dude sneezes and he’s got neurocognitive specialists
giving him tests on the sideline. I have to admit I’m a little bummed there’s
already been three Colts on this team. I kinda hate the Colts. Still though, it’s
pretty hard to resist the chance to make an Austin Collie concussion joke.

#18: Randall Cobb (WR, Green Bay Packers) – I run a
fantastical league where return yards on special teams scores points, so that
period this year when the Packers had no RB, and Cobb was the only receiver who
could catch passes, and he was also their return man, it was a glorious period.
Thus, he is now here. Because of fake football games with nerds using math.

#19: John Skelton (QB, Arizona Cardinals) – Is there
anything more perfectly misfitted than a cast-off Cardinals QB named Skelton
wearing the #19? I mean, Harry Crews or Cormac McCarthy couldn’t have dreamed
up something like that. So sad and so real.

#20: Ed Reed (S, Baltimore Ravens) – Ed Reed is the
greatest. You can tell by looking into his sad ancient hobo hermit poet eyes.
It really just drives home what a douche Ray Lewis is when you look over and Ed
Reed is just being totally chill about everything, always.

#21: Charles Woodson (S, Green Bay Packers) – Similar things
– though not quite as strongly – can be said for Charles Woodson. He is a rock,
and keeps fighting around injuries galore, although he’s already made the
downgrade from CB to safety, so there’s not much further into the grey areas of
active NFL rosters he can really go. But we love Charles Woodson at Armchair
Linebacker, as he was always the superior Woodson (fuck you Rod, and I guess
Darren as well, though I don’t think other than that one Super Bowl game where
Neil O’Donnell was paid to lose it by the Mafia anybody really thought Darren
Woodson was good).

#22: Jerron McMillian (CB, Green Bay Packers) – Makes the
team simply because he is the only NFL player active with my last name, spelled
as I spell it, which is a rare spelling only utilized by true Super
Destructors. I am of course of the metaphysical variety of Super Destructor,
and the last name is pronounced “MACK-mill-in” because the extra a in the last
syllable shoots into the first syllable because I am motherfucking magical like
that, and more powerful than the painful conventions of the English language. I
am New Writing, in human form.

ARMCHAIR LINEBACKER!

Football. No matter what anyone says, this is the true national pastime, and because of that far too many of us have been swallowed up by the monster storm called fandom, spiraling further and further into the abyss until finally, all we can do is holler back, screaming into the void hoping that someone, somewhere might hear our fool words.That is what this blog is all about, giving a voice to those who need to just get it all out because their own team has clubbed them over the head one too many times. We are all idiots, utterly without dignity or decency, but we are fans and we believe despite ourselves that somehow this football thing will someday be worth all that idiocy and pain.If you think you have something to say about your team, or if you just want to say hello or hell, even if you just want to yell at us, hit Raven Mack up at ravenmack at gmail.com or Neil up at neilabfree at gmail.com and before you know it, you too may be gibbering like a lunatic for the world to see. Come, join us, and we will gnaw on the bones of the wicked and the foolish together. Football. What can we say? We love it.

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REGGIE ROBY!

Reggie Roby is the human mascot for this blog because while everyone was all up-in-arms about black quarterbacks, he was silently The Black Punter. Not only that though, because he was the best and wore a wristwatch on his arm to create the factoid of hangtime, because he knew his shit, even though it looked like he didn't. Reggie Roby personifies the open-minded know-it-allness punter mentality of The Armchair Linebacker. That's our man.